1

Welcome to the wikiHaus Lab update! Here’s what’s new for February so far:

:rocket: You may have noticed:A new format for tech articles. The goal of these is to have a range of brief, quick and easy-to-digest articles that help readers with tech issues, such as these Photoshop articles on How do I zoom on Photoshop? , How do I Fill a Color on Photoshop? and How Do I Duplicate a Layer?

:rocket: You may have noticed:A new style for relationship articles, like What Are Some Unique Valentine’s Day Ideas? and What Are Some Funny Ways to Ask Someone Out on a Date? These articles cover a different idea for each section. I like the way a reader can easily see each suggestion by looking at the section header as they scroll through, and just stop at the ones that interest them.

:rocket: You may have noticed:We have a new option for image licensing that can be used for images uploaded from a range of free stock image sites such as Pixabay and Pexels. You can find the new option in Special:Upload , or you can find the specifics here: https://www.wikihow.com/Template:Freestockimage

:star: Coming up:

:star:The existing ‘like’ buttons on article sections are officially going to be made into a real feature that will have the actual number of likes added by readers! Watch this space!

:star:The team is looking to change up the newsletter popup to catch the attention of our readers who might have skipped the signup previously. You can check out some potential slider options designed by Daisy here . Do you have a favorite?

11 Likes
3

These changes look great. For the newsletter slider, I like the orange one with the orange envelope.

I also have a question about the like buttons. Are they going to allow you to unlike now? And, are they going to be cleared when the articles accuracy ratings are cleared? If not, will there be some other way to clear them?

Also, is anything happening with the comment buttons next to the like buttons right now?

3 Likes
4

Nice to hear about these new changes. The “like” features seems to be a good addition.

The newsletter slide that stands out most for me is the one with the green background.

3 Likes
5

I like the newsletter popup with the yellow background and yellow envelope. It pops out, since the site is mostly green.:slight_smile:

2 Likes
6

Great questions R2, I will check and get back to you about those:slight_smile:Though I do know it’ll just be the like buttons for now, no real-life commenting will be implemented at this stage.

7

Mmhmm! Sounds great. The like option also seems good! I like the green enveloped one, and the orange with the green card popping up. But the other one looks great too!

1 Like
8

Everything looks great, but I’m just a little confused about the message on the freestockimage template. I think it’s a bit too specific by saying, “This image was sourced from Pixabay, Pexels, Nappy, or Canva services” and I think a little tweak that makes the message more general and refers to all free stock photo agencies (like Unsplash or something) would help clarify it. Just an idea:slight_smile:

2 Likes
9

Honestly, the one that is smallest. It always gets in the way.:joy:

1 Like
10

Opps, it looks like I accidentally deleted my comment, and I can’t restore it. Could an admin please restore it if possible?

2 Likes
11

I’m going to be That Guy™ and quasi-bump this to say that I discovered some of the new relationship topics don’t have the custom title appear properly when they show up in a search.

Screen Shot 2021-02-18 at 3.28.13 PM
Screen Shot 2021-02-18 at 3.28.13 PM 1468×310 123 KB

I know it’s probably low-priority, but it might be worth looking at at some point, if just because someone who finds it via the search bar is going to think we don’t know how to use grammar, baha.

12

Great point Alex, these will definitely need an update! Passing on to someone who can help fix these. Thanks for noting it:slight_smile:

13

I also pinged a little reminder to the team on these questions and got this back:

Are they going to allow you to unlike now? Yes, users will be able to click the icon a second time to remove their “like”.

Are they going to be cleared when the articles accuracy ratings are cleared? If not, will there be some other way to clear them? Clearing the likes on methods probably won’t be tied to clearing the ratings, but there will likely be a separate mechanism that can clear them.

1 Like
14

This is unrelated to the main topic but feedback for the engineers who made Q&A possible.

I am thinking the functionality of the “not helpful” button should be changed. Since answers flagged as unhelpful and poor ratings could potentially affect search engine rankings, I think the downvote for “not helpful” should be completely hidden to everyone except Q&A patrollers.

Something like this:

image
image 1400×748 106 KB

Clicking the “Not helpful” button would allow the reader to send feedback about the question to Q&A patrollers.

Q&A patrollers would be able to hover over a dropdown to see all the “not helpful” feedback, delete troll feedback, and edit the answer so it is helpful.

1 Like
15

I’ve taken your feedback to the team about Q&A from our conversation about it last week:slight_smile:

1 Like
16

Why not just make it so that only logged in users can see the votes? I don’t see a reason why it should be restricted to Q&A Patrollers. I personally like knowing how many not helpful votes an answer has.

3 Likes
17

Because the not helpful information is really only helpful to Q&A patrollers. They are the only ones that are able to delete answers from the database, edit answers (including already published answers), and fix flagged answers or unhelpful answers.

1 Like
18

But why apply restrictions? wiki’s are suppose to be open.

2 Likes
19

I agree @R2_d2000 , the request I have made is to make Q&A helpfulness votes on some articles only able to be seen by logged in users (not just Q&A patrollers).

3 Likes
20

Makes sense. Maybe you should have made it more explicit what was proposed.

2 Likes